Technology is a driving force in commerce and business. For example, technology influences content and document management, e-commerce, as well as the general dissemination of information to the masses, to name a few. Technology is also at the cutting edge of new paradigms such as, for example, Internet based advertising and business and social collaboration. In the latter case, Web 2.0 applications have been developed which attempt to enhance creativity, information sharing, and, most notably, collaboration among users. Also, the evolving view of Web 2.0 combines a mixture of portability, collaboration, and technology to improve the user experience. These Web 2.0 applications have led to the evolution of web-based communities such as, for example, social networking sites, wikis and blogs.
As the Internet and other technologies evolve and become an ever more important tool for businesses to increase revenue and reduce costs, many businesses have begun to more seriously assess their use of such technologies. For example, in today's marketplace, retailers and other businesses are looking for ways to increase customer satisfaction, decrease operating cost, and develop a sense of trust between the consumer and the retailer using such technologies. To this end, businesses are developing new models that allow their customers, suppliers, etc., to not only collaborate with the business but also with each other. For example, content and opportunities for collaboration are being provided over managed forums such as, for example, wiki's, blogs, RSS, and folksonomies. Businesses are also able to deliver rich content to users enhancing their experience through AJAX and flex while moving to portable platforms.
In general, technology adoption follows a standard bell curve with a minority of businesses embracing technology in its earlier stages while another minority only reluctantly embrace such technology when it is mature. Said otherwise, a minority of businesses lag behind the technology curve by adopting the technology on the tail end of the bell curve. Of course, the late corners do not gain the same strategic advantage afforded to the early embracing businesses, but do not incur the same costs as implementing infancy technologies as those users that embrace the technology early in its deployment. This cost can often include acceptance, bugs, and total cost to develop. In any event, a majority of companies do not want to pay the cost of early adoption of technology nor do they want to lag technologically. These businesses usually lie somewhere within the mainstream and fall somewhere in the middle of the technology curve.
Consultants and companies, for example, are often looking for quick approach to assess where a company lies on the technology curve to help them determine when a new technology adoption should occur and/or what new technology should be adopted. However, evaluation of the adoption of new technologies, if performed at all, is performed as a manual process today. For example, expert assessors may perform a manual heuristic evaluation of technology adoption. Moreover, these manual assessments tend to be ad hoc and unstructured, especially when trying to determine when new and/or incremental technology curves will occur.
Accordingly, there exists a need in the art to overcome the deficiencies and limitations described herein above.